11/7/15: Steamroller and MERCs Game!

Howdy!

So last Saturday I got to play in a Steamroller tournament for Warmachine/Hordes. I hadn't played in a while but luckily I've had practice with friends every time we played together. Lately I had been having the most fun with my Trollbloods using my newest version of my Doomshaper list, so I decided to bring the old blueskins to test my luck. My luck was absolutely terrible...

And just to clarify, it was simply luck that kept me from getting wins. Not how I played, or my opponent getting the best of me, just really crappy rolls at the worst times. All my opponents unanimously agreed that I had the win, if it weren't for my terrible rolls.

First game deployment against pSkarre

Sorry I didn't take many pics, I was concentrating on the game (timers give me heart palpitations). My opponent used his pSkarre list. When he saw my lists he didn't even look at it all and assumed it was pDoomshaper's theme list Runes of War, which is huge in the Meta and tournament scene. I, of course, told him it wasn't, which garnered a shocking look. I personally don't like net lists, not for the lack of originality but simply because every Meta is prepared to see it. What I like about mine is that it acts completely different than the Runes list with a similar build, and people simply don't see it coming. My friend Monty once told me that no one has ever mentioned seeing or playing my list before, and it hasn't lost... until now.

Well the game was going smooth on turn one. He pushed all his infantry to screen his army with his caster way in the back. I proceeded to trample through them and goad for 16" straight to the caster with Mulg. I had 3 attacks left, and if I hit then one more for the affinity, with boosted attack rolls from Wild Aggression. With a MAT 7 against DEF 16 I only needed 9s on 3 dice, and his armor was a mere 15 or so (no focus since he didn't think I'd be anywhere near him top of turn 2) with my STR 20. All I needed was one hit to pretty much seal the deal and get an extra attack in case. My first roll was three 1s. I quickly just got over it and rolled again, and again, and missed every one of them. Meaning I lost out on the affinity attack as well. I know that it's not impossible for that to happen, but man it stings. 

Well, this tactic of surprise assassinations really doubles down on the attempt, leaving my caster in the open and getting him killed immediately after. After the game he said that I should have had it, and that he's never seen the list before nor expected it to be that aggressive, which makes me somewhat proud that I can make an original list that disrupts a seasoned veteran's plans.

Wold War and Failure Number Two

So in comes the second round. I'm upset since I knew I should have had the last one, but I get over it for another chance at redemption. This time I'm paired up with Circle, particularly the Wold War theme list for Bradigus. I've read on it once, and it seemed like it was a powerful combination of abilities and denial. Naturally I played a lot more defensively than usual with my Mulg list. Although I knew of certain aspects of the list I had never once seen it in action so I didn't know what its strengths and weaknesses were. I still thought that perhaps my usual tactic should work, but this time I didn't opt for the turn two assassination as the slow moving army was slightly out of range for it.

Top of turn Three

We both had similar armies in terms of strategy, with high armored beasts going straight for the jugular. I decided that since his whole army is a battlegroup I'd try to stretch his resources thin by keeping my Champions very far away in the opposite zone. They can operate on their own effectively and contest or score a zone, and if he decides to dedicate any efforts to it his caster will have to stay within range for his control, either forcing him to keep everyone in range or abandon the zone. He slowly approached my army while I kept my beasts on the right. Once he was in range I had Mulg trample over near the caster, kill a shifting stone for Goad, then got right in range of Bradigus.

This is what it looked like when I stormed in

With Mulg having 4 fury left and the Affinity I had it. Bradigus only had 2 fury stored, so two attacks were going to get transferred. This left 3 attacks on ARM 16 (?) to do damage, which is plenty enough with STR 20. This leaves on average a total of 10 damage per attack. Three attacks getting through mean 30 damage on average, about twice his HP. The plan seemed solid, with plenty of redundancy for damage. And I only needed sevens to hit with free boosted attacks.

The first two he takes without transferring, leaving him down to 3 HP. He was forced to transfer the next two hits. On the last Affinity attack I rolled a 5 on three dice.

AAAAAAGGGGGHHHHHHH!

Needless to say I lost immediately after that.

I just couldn't believe it. It happened again. Lousy rolls killing solid strategy and ruining my list's potential. My list is still effective once you know what it does, it's just a lot harder to run the gimmick once they're ready for it. And I've beaten people before who knew what it did, especially in Kill Box where there's not many places to hide.

Anyway, with my Spirit thoroughly crippled I got the bye on the third round. With the bye I got the opportunity to play the TO George in a game of Mercs, the high point of my day...

I brought my lovable FCC House 9 models while he used his USCR. I know how USCR works, as well as the fact that the Behemoth is near auto-take for most people (personally I'd attempt not using him simply because it's expected that you would). High armor is a problem for FCC without a Black Ops member, which is the situation I found myself in. I knew that my mobility was key to attaining a victory, and utilizing the FCC's corporate ability (in Mercs 1.0, not 1.9) to bypass his Suppression and Overwatch lanes. I used the Boomer, House Leader, Chem Engineer, Pack Rat and House Member and he used all but the Booster in his force. The picture above was at the bottom of turn 2, but it's similar to where everyone was deployed short of moving up the board. I set up the board with plenty of terrain and made sure it was asymmetrical in elevation to make things interesting. The amount of terrain surprised him as he's used to a lot less terrain, but I feel like the game is not nearly as interesting if there are huge lanes of fire, and the right abilities tend to just overtake the game if you have less terrain, so I built it a lot like an Infinity table. The rules state to ensure there are no open lanes from deployment zone to deployment zone - which is interesting as a lot of the official maps do just that - and I made it diagonal, which is a common thing in Infinity that really makes things interesting.

So he won the roll off on picking sides and deploying his first model. Naturally he chose the high side and gave me an unsure look, since he's able to deploy on top of the upper right building (which I did on purpose as the roof was fairly open and there were more walls and less open ground on the other deployment side). I assured him that it's okay to deploy on top, even if his models just dominate it is a fair thing to do and something I'd need to practice against anyway. I'm a huge believer in practicing terrible match ups in order to get better, as that makes playing even match ups much simpler.

He proceeded to capitalize on the leader ability by keeping everyone close to his leader, while deploying the sniper and behemoth on the same roof. These are sound tactics, but I believe the redundancy of a sniper and the Behemoth in the exact same vector doesn't create good fire lanes, as there is no crossfire. Granted, should something get in that lane it's gonna have a bad time. But if you simply avoid their lanes and stay out of LOS then you eliminate two models' effectiveness entirely. Being that he deployed the rest of his models in the center lane he limited the crossfire on my left side, making it the best side to approach for me. I love how this game effectively represents a real firefight, almost to the same extent as Infinity. It really does remind me of playing paintball, as the 3x2 table size is a lot like a speedball field, and the same tactics apply.

So I deploy my guys very spread out. On the right I put my Pack Rat and Leader. I do this because the Pack Rat can take a lot of punishment with his Medkits, and the leader may be able to Sweep the field and give the Pack Rat the leader bonus. Unfortunately her Caltrops are useless against a slow opponent like USCR, as there aren't many opportunities to control their movement when they're hardly moving already.

In the middle I deploy my Boomer. Being in the middle helps him react to either side efficiently. His weapon can single handedly control the center and break up clumps, and while loading he can hide out behind some cover. Controlling the center is important as it allows your flanks to aggressively move, but the center doesn't necessarily need to aggressively move at all. Once he's at the 50 (like the 50 yard line, Paintball term!) he's exactly where he needs to be. Moving further up would only be necessary if he's out of range of corner models, at which point he's bounding with his flank.

On the left and most important flank are my House Member and Chem Engineer. I've found this pair to be incredible together in Mercs 1.0, mostly due to the House Member's mobility and the Chem Engineer's MP of 3. The HM can bound with the Chem Engineer while the CE moves and fires and keeps pace. If he lands a hit he does permanent debuffs on the enemy model. If the opportunity presents itself and the way is clear he bounds as well and has a MP 4! That's one speedy flank.

Here we have the Chem Engineer covering the House Member's advance

So the game begins with him moving the majority of his models up the center to the ruined building, placing three of his models within one card of the leader behind cover. His Behemoth and Sniper then advance to near the building roof's edge to prepare to unleash hell. Almost all my models bound to the leader and speedily move up the board, with the House Leader moving up to the side of a building. At this point George notes how fast everyone's moving, but really most are MP 2 which is normal, and the bound makes them move another card. I don't believe he's seen anyone just bound entirely for the first turn, but I know the importance of setting up fire lanes as far forward as possible and most people won't set up suppression/overwatch on the first turn instead of moving. He could have done so with his Behemoth or Sniper, but since I don't move any models until the last activation it's hard to tell how effective it will be. 

The next turn is when it got tricky. He set up overwatch with his Behemoth early on, but I cunningly triggered the shot with my Chem Engineer, with everyone else behind full cover. Being that he's forced to take the shot it caught his group of three models from the rear with no cover and promptly murderized two of them in one swoop! It then managed to miss my CE entirely. He now sees the drawback with having that massive guy and will be more careful with his placement in the future...

It seemed like it would be a good swing in my favor, but over the next few turns he managed to pick off my Leader, then Boomer, then Pack Rat in a fell swoop. The Boomer managed to pick off the remaining model in the clump before dying. What was left was the Chem Engineer and the House Member, who was fully into the enemy side and ready to flank the remaining Sniper and Behemoth. The CE managed to hit the sniper and blood him, along with debuffing him with the Irradiated Ammo, before succumbing to the Behemoth's rain of fire. His sacrifice managed to keep the House Member away from the cross hairs for one crucial round while he managed to dive into the shadow of the building out of LOS from the two enemies. George prepared against the inevitable climb and turned the sniper around to face the HM when he does. The HM won initiative, climbed the building and fired at the Sniper, killing him. The Behemoth had to spend his activation turning around to face the HM. The HM won initiative again in this fight to the last man, moved into the flank of the Behemoth, while managing to be in the back 180 of his arc, and shot at him. The attack certainly wouldn't wound, but it did force an armor break test which he failed, lowering his armor down to a still hefty 3. The Behemoth, however, can't move and shoot, and his movement is now zero, so the nimble House Member danced around to the rear arc, got within short range, and killed the Behemoth. It was a true David vs Goliath battle, and had an epic ending.

The final blow, ending in tremendous fashion

It was truly cinematic, and I had more fun with this game than I did with my previous two for WM/H that day. I really love this game, it boils down to maneuvering and real tactics more than out gaming - although some would disagree with me. It's one of my favorites, and I actually love it more than Infinity (but that game is still awesome). I wish it was more popular, but having two other people to play it is good enough for me. 

Anyway, hope you enjoyed the write up and pics, if you're feeling crazy give MERCs a try, at worse you will end up with awesome models to paint and be about $50 poorer. 

Steamroller 1/3 and further thoughts/WIP

So, post of the new year and it's already late...

Well I will begin with my first hobby related incident of 2015. I participated in a 50 point Steamroller at the wonderful Empire store with my Highborn Covenant on 1/3/15.

I... did... terribly...

It's humbling to go from a win to all losses. I attribute my performance solely to my Ashlynn list. I know that in terms of list building it's weak and lacks cohesion, but mostly in all honestly I'm not nearly as comfortable with her as I am with Gorten and have hardly any real practice with her.

So far I'm used to either super tanky casters such as Gorten or Madrak or super fragile ones like Doomshaper or Kaelyssa. Both extremes warrant easily dictated use, such as jumping into the fray or staying away from the fight. But Ashlynn requires a deft hand and delicate use, and to not throw her in can be a waste at times.

Firstly, let me post some pics of the disaster:

So the first game I was going against Legion. He had two lists that I could hard counter with mine, but it was essential that I choose right. Well, I didn't. I had taken my Ashlynn list thinking he wouldn't take the AOE spam list of his which he did. I was going against eLylyth for the first time and got assassinated at the top of turn 2 which took a total of 3 minutes of game time. I was stunned, but it happens to everyone once. Game two was a bye for me.

Game three was against Cryx using pDenny. I discovered on Feat turn that his feat essentially negates Ashlynn's feat and essentially my list. Some better choices could have been made, but it was disheartening to find that the list I specifically designed to counter Cryx (being a strong meta army) was ineffective.

My last game I went with Gorten, being that it was against Butcher3 and had a kill box. I had it all in control at first. I was throwing things with the Mules (including the butcher and his THREE dogs), I was sniping models with the ATGM, I had funneled Doom Reavers through difficult terrain, I D-Bolted the caster and had Thor and his Basher holding the weak side well. I still don't know what happened.

Well, let me try to figure it out. I guess it all started on my feat turn. I got over confident and thought of dragging his army back into the kill box, thus negating any real chance I had of killing models but going for Control Point victory. I had to do a lot of trickery to get Gorten in the most efficient placement and slid everyone back. The problem was that now my Caster was alone in the woods with no way of gaining Pathfinder and no way of assassinating Butcher. Well, the wizards on horsies took out my main killing unit - the Hammers - and I thought CP was the only way to go. I didn't remember that he has energize and the next turn moved out of the kill box. It was all downhill from there.

Well, hard lessons learned. It wasn't very much of a fun day for me (game wise). Bright side: I got a lot of useful tips from the friendly players about how to utilize Ashlynn better. They gave me great ideas and with only a few tweaks to my list I can have a more powerful Ashlynn. I only need one more model to make it complete and hopefully have more success with a much more invincible Ashlynn.

In other news...

... I've been more consistent on the hobby front. This week I've been working on two projects. One is my recently obtained 4x4 Zuzzy Mat:

I cannot recommend this product enough. Although I got it secondhand the retail price is more than affordable. It takes very little space when rolled up and does not weigh a ton. The textures are amazing considering the small width of the rubber. It's great for keeping models safe from chipping and doesn't slide around.

Here are a few things I discovered while painting it so far: airbrush is not the way to go, at least for the base coat. I tried to airbrush and it proved time consuming and inconsistent. I ended up getting cheap acrylic paint at Michael's and used the stippling/scumbling technique for coverage and it ended up being much more effective. As always, build your color up in layers of thin paint (although I actually ended up using thicker paint by the end of it, it may bite me later).

The rock patches are going to end up grey. I should have basecoats done this week and then I will drybrush. I originally planned on doing a wash first, but I think it may be more work than it's worth. Maybe I'll try it out on the sample patch, but I am a lazy person.

Overall it looks great and I can't way to play on it. I may do a picture battle report like I started on for Malifaux way back (before my laptop got stolen) in a comic panel style.

The other project I'm working on are my Gremlins for Malifaux:

I'm having a blast painting these guys. I decided not to get bogged down with making every model I own up to my highest possible standard. Sometimes it's just nice to have a complete model that I didn't put 120% of my effort into. Holding myself to these standards is the reason why I don't have a lot of completed armies or even crews. So I did a paint scheme consisting of almost 100% wash finishes to do the shading and it turned out a much faster paint job. In the end the paint job wasn't bad at all and although it's not my best it definitely looks good. Once they're all painted I will be using Envirotex Lite to create a murky swamp at their feet.

This kind of leads me to new year's thoughts. In 2013 I resolved to have a fully painted Troll list, which I successfully accomplished. Last year I tackled a monstrosity of a list for goals, and I pretty much set myself up for failure. I thought I could handle having a fully painted crew, but I kept juggling around as to what my goal really was and kept adding more and more. Toward the end I felt like I had failed at the hobby and keeping to my internal promises.

But then I realized, what the hell kind of fun is that if my hobby pisses me off?

So in December I scrapped any ounce of care I had into fulfilling my resolution of 2014 and decided this: I am just going to do what I think is fun whenever I want.

Once I fully held to this Mantra rather than a schedule I actually saw I was getting more work done. It's quite liberating to approach my hobby this way. Adhering to a schedule made my fun seem like work and I ended up not doing anything due to the stress it was adding to my life.

So now if I feel like painting Infinity, I'll do it. Then I'll stop if I want to do something else. Eventually it will get done. Who cares when? If I feel like painting my stuff before an event or meet up, then I'll do it. But I don't need to hold myself to these arbitrary goals so rigidly. I just need to have fun.

So my hobby resolution this year? Have fun, and celebrate if and when I finish a project.

Steamroller Victory!

Hiya Internet!

On 12/6 I participated in a small Steamroller tournament and WON! Granted, it ended a round early due to me being the only undefeated player by round three due to the small amount of players, but a win's a win.

I've been working tirelessly (on and off) on painting my Highborn Covenant army and have made some decent progress, even getting close to a fully painted 35 point list!

I made an almost identical Gorten/Ashlynn list, but only had to use Gorten (whose feat is tremendous in tournament play, especially Kill Box!)

I learned a lot, but more importantly I learned from my previous mistakes and kept the scenario in mind at all times. This got me valuable control points in both my games. I also learned that pEiryss by herself can contest an entire zone if she's behind Gorten's wall and under the protection of his Solid Ground spell. Def 21 against ranged/Def 19 against melee/immune to blasts anyone?

I used the prize money to get a starter box for X-Wing, since a lot of people are into that game and it seems pretty interesting. A simple dogfighting game is vastly different from the current games I play, plus it requires minimum additional peripherals (i.e. terrain, large armies, model count, etc.). It looks promising and I taught my wife how to play it in about 5 minutes!

Here are some pics from the tournament. Notice the new blue jack and painted Horgenhold Forge Guard? They're not 100% complete, but are definitely acceptable for tabletop standard. I also painted about 50% of the Basher and finished Gorten (finally). Once I have the ATGM unit and Eiryss up to tabletop standard I can field a fully painted 35 point list!

Sorry about not having very many good pics, I was concentrating more on time rather than getting satisfying photos.

In other hobbies, I've put aside painting Malifaux models for a bit. I've been getting frustrated at painting them as they are not coming out the way I want them to. I realized that they are two completely different styles and I'll need to adjust how I paint them, but sometimes you've just got to step away and paint something else. Instead of approaching my normal "paint for completion" mentality, which means painting only the same army/models that will go toward completing a fully painted army, I've been bouncing from project to project, only painting what I desire to paint at the time. Treating it like a job isn't getting me anywhere and is causing burnout much faster, so i'll just paint whatever I am in the mood for. It's working wonders, which is why my Mercs are turning out so well. Next I plan on tackling more terrain, since I'm really in the mood to get my table done soon.

More pics and blog entries will be coming, hopefully more consistently. I may put up a batrep or two on some games like X-Wing.

Updates

So, my last entry was in mid August and now it is mid October. In between those times work had hit pretty hard, so a lot of side projects were put on hold, including upkeeping the challenge of a hobby item a week. I had, however, accomplished a few things here and there and even attended a local steamroller tournament.

This particular steamroller actually had prize support for best painted model and army, so I decided that instead of trying to win with my Mercs I'll try to take best painted with my Trolls - who do terribly in SRs due to their design being based solely on attrition with my brick and have no way of winning by scenario short of a single zone scenario. My beast list is the opposite focusing solely on killy killy stuff, but is very prone to assassination with such a squishy caster and I tend to overextend myself with it. I did end up winning both painting awards, but my games weren't so successful.

Well, I ended up playing a guy I faced before doing the exact same lists we played against each other and the exact same scenario. Instead of getting pulverized like I did before I actually came very close to winning, but I timed myself out. I've learned quite a bit between our last bout and even survived an assassination attempt by Molik Karn, which is quite a feat. Lesson of the game: don't waste time, and avoid assassination attempts with too many moving parts. Things I learned and applied from last time: don't overestimate units, both mine and his; it's okay to hold onto your feat until turn 4 sometimes - better to use it late when it's more useful than early and less useful, even if you have less units to benefit from it. He actually forgot I still had it by then, which came to my benefit. But really it was useless to use it the turn he popped his feat since they had a minimum defense of 16s around the board and tough.

Due to the loss the second game was much easier. I played against a beginner Khador using a Conquest and two units of Man-o-Wars. I decided to use my Doom/Mulg list as to not lock my last list in, plus Mulg can easily dispatch the Conquest on his own. The plan worked and Mulg killed it in one turn (although it used all his resources) and the Long Riders tied up the Manowars easily.

The last game was against a Cryx player. My trolls have an extremely hard time going against any Cryx players. When I first started playing in Mk I my meta was only my friends, which meant I never played against Cryx or even in tournaments. I never had to deal with Incorporeal or debuffs that much. So I only bought models that worked for the brick. Once into Mk II I lost interest in the Trolls and hadn't wanted to fill these weaknesses out since I already had a painted force. Thus Cryx, even mediocre lists, dominate my trolls. I'm not proud, but hey at least they look pretty when they die.

Because of my limitations to using my painted force I didn't do so well my third game in. Again my time became an issue, so it's definitely something I need to work on. Because I couldn't manage my time I didn't utilize a trample when I needed to and costed me the game. I could have trampled over and assassinated the caster, least of all been out of range of the unit causing me not to be able to heal or be healed. Mulg could have gotten the win, but I played a bit too conservative with him. Lesson learned: go for the win if it's a clear shot, learn to utilize the clock.

Here are some pics:

I actually started painting Mulg for the steamroller and utilized the challenge to motivate me. He ended up being mostly painted - I'd say about 75% - in time for the steamroller. Even though he wasn't finished he was the model I put up for best painted and won. I hadn't touched him since, being that he's such an overwhelming task with all the details. At least he's tabletop standard.

In the meantime I also got a coworker into Malifaux and played a demo game with him. He ended up buying the Pandora box and a Teddy - which made me jealous as I've always wanted to play as them. I have waaaay too many models as it is however and am completely fine with not having that crew. I already have several crews and have only played a handful of games so far.

I can't wait until that Dreamer box comes out, although I just want to paint Lord Chompy Bits. I've already got so many damn models I need to stop. I bought the Som'er Teeth Jones box and the University of Transmortis box and I still haven't even painted one crew yet.

And once I started accruing all this stuff I got the Hobby ADD again - I've decided to work on Infinity!

So I began by putting together some terrain about a week or two ago. I did all of it so far from foamboard. I have limited experience with it only through my papercraft terrain which was never completed (it is extremely time consuming to do properly). However, I've foraged through numerous tutorials and resources and felt comfortable diving right in. Let me tell you - building terrain is awesome, and foamboard is the bee's knees.

Here's a WIP:

It's not much to look at right now (it is a WIP after all) but you can see the general idea. I used miter cuts to hide a lot of the joins and also cut the perimeter at the base board to make it stable as well as hide joins. The result is spectacular and have since added more details. Once I finish the basic part I will take more WIP pictures to show you everything up until painting, and that's when this thing is really going to shine.

I haven't had this much fun with the hobby in a long time! I always said the one part I hate most is the modelling portion. I love the playing, and I love the painting even more, but I hate the gluing, the filing, the pinning, all the modeling parts. It's the reason why I almost never convert, or make elaborate bases, and why a lot of my models never get put together or painted. It's the opposite for terrain. It gets me motivated and utilizes my creativity much more and just gets me imagining like a kid again. With what I've started I've realized just what's possible, and pinterest definitely fuels the fire.

You'll see exactly what I'm talking about once I get finished with this piece.

I also decided to put all the models I have purchased over time for Infinity. I put together every box and blister I own for Infinity short of the O-Yoroi pilot from the bootleg series, since that's really just a vanity model. I've decided to get going on them and paint them to a tabletop standard, rather than the weeks-long session I did on the first model I painted. We'll see if that happens...

Anyway, that's what I have. Hopefully I'll have more pics of the terrain and what I'm going for next!

Steamroller 6/28/2014

So last Saturday I took part in a small (I think 8 or 10 man) Steamroller tournament. This time I decided to take my Mercenary army, of the Highborn Covenant. I have a lot of fun playing this army and it seems to be highly competitive (at least in casual games). In theory it can take on all scenarios and most army lists, at least much better than any of my trollblood lists. This is in theory, of course, and my experience with my half-cooked schemes usually end in tear-soaked agony.

Although I don't have very much experience with this army (I've only played with them a handful of times) it's a great army and easy to play. Since I'm in the mood I'll go ahead and explain how I came up with the idea for the army...

At the time I had a complete Troll army, with enough stuff to make several different satisfying lists, as well as a complete Retribution army, which I have 3 casters and enough stuff to make varying lists. I had extensive experience with my Trolls as they were my main faction (I know my Madrak list like the back of my hand) and had success with them, seeing them adapt to many situations and take on a lot of different lists in the process. Their main weakness was incorporeal or equivalents, like Menoth denial lists. In my Madrak list I have 2 magic weapons and that's it, one of which belongs to Janissa who rarely sees combat if I can help it. My alternate eDoomshaper list also only has 2 magic weapons, one for Mulg (who will always take care of it) and the other to Doomy himself, and if he's trying to melee something then something has gone terribly wrong. Both lists were pretty hardy against shooting, with Madrak brushing it off while slowly advancing and Doom/Mulg would be extremely fast and usually get a turn 2 charge. The problem with both is that you'll see it coming a mile away, you'll just be hard pressed to stop it. There wasn't a lot of shenanigans outside of Madrak's Feat, Doomshaper's Feat and Goad abilities, and power attacks (there's nothing a double hand throw can't fix!). And although Doom's list is fast, I was usually being outmaneuvered. I would alleviate this with Long Riders, but in Madrak's list I would be horribly flanked and almost never get the charge (mitigated with a minimum of ARM 20 and DEF 14+ army wide with a wall in front).

Anyways, I digress. Long story short, although far from boring I sought a different approach to the game.

With my Retribution it was a different story. I centered my armies around the assassination. Vyros made a strong army with the Hydra and Phoenix doing the heavy damage with the Sentinels as back up. He can give a jack the ability to ignore forests for LOS, making a fully camped Hydra shoot 15" with impunity, or a Phoenix charging through a forest when the enemy thought for sure it wouldn't be able to. His feat is lackluster, but giving Sentinels +2 ARM is priceless when coupled with weapon master and vengeance. My Kaelyssa list was even sneakier. She kept the ability for the Hydra to shoot powerful fully boosted POW 15s at a caster through Phantom Seeker. If going against a Caster then Backlash reigned supreme with sentinels and mage hunters on the field. Mage Hunter assassins need no explanation. Eiryss always does her thing. And Narn, oh Narn. I love the guy, even if he only kills one grunt the whole game. His shenanigans are perfect for the army. I deploy him directly across the caster, who most likely has a unit guarding him. He uses his insane speed to charge a model (and with acrobatics he can charge someone in the back) and once he kills it he sprints to hug the caster! At that point it doesn't matter what he does. Either the caster has to spend resources to kill him by using focus, or he'll have to move a unit or jack in to finish the job. Most people don't use a singular solo for the risk of a whiff against DEF 15, so he tends to attract more points than he's worth, essentially distracting enough of the force for my army to approach unscathed. If he ignores it, well that's 2 weapon master attacks at a high MAT swinging at your caster, who unless he has Parry is not getting away without risking death. Couple that with 2 Assassins close behind and you've got a pickle.

Long story short (again) it's full of shenanigans, but hardly has the staying power I like and isn't great at scenario, since it's entirely built for the assassination. I have no tarpit units (I don't want to buy houseguard purely for the reason that I have too many models as it is) so zone control is hardly my forte. I also have trouble using scalpel like armies and tend to fold like a house of cards if one thing goes wrong (like someone who brings waaay too many AOEs to the party!).

So I was thinking of new armies I could try for a change of pace. I remembered that I've always wanted to paint the Gorten model since the game first came out. I feel that he's one of the best representations of the steampunk side of WM (one which I feel is being lost through time). His model has so much character, it looks like he's just a tank and can take whatever damage you try to dish!

So I thought, what goes with a Gorten army?

Gorten has an amazing feat and tried to think of units that compliment it. I originally thought I'd go for Searforge commission. It has a great theme and several units I wanted to paint. The Hammer dudes have that same character as Gorten, like those pistons are gonna punch a hole in your chest. I'm not a huge fan of the High Shields, but they still look cool as hell. I rounded it out with Thor and 2 Bashers for speed, and the fact that Bashers look and work like total badasses. I included the Hordes mini 'lock with the bear as his rules oozed flavor, and the models were fierce. All in all it was looking like a decent army and I was about to purchase it.

Once I thought more on the list the less I liked it. It was very slow, with only 3 "fast" models. If I went against a fast army like Circle I'd be toast, since they can outmaneuver as well as out shoot me. For Zone control it didn't seem bad, but there were better armies out there and they were numerous. For shenanigans it was almost non existent. I got this idea in my head like it's exactly like my trolls, except even slower and less tanky.

I explored the other contracts at this point and came across Highborn. I love the fluff. Then I read the Mule. Then I read the Arcane Tempest Gun Mages. Then I read Ashlynn. Then I ordered my army.

It was everything I was looking for. It looked mean on the table top, all the models were beautiful, and it kept the models I wanted to use in the original list I made. It was also a changed to become a vastly shooting army, which was the drastic change I needed. I didn't realize that I have never played a predominantly shooting army, being that I always felt melee to be more efficient in this game with charge boosts and having generally more attacks than shooting - which usually has ROF 1. On top of all this it had one of my favorite elements: shenanigans.

Shenanigan 1: Shooting is at very long range.

The mules can have a 16" shot with arcing fire. The Gun Mages have a 14" shot. Gorten has a powerful 12" POW 16 shot (boostable!). His Gunners have a 12" shot (boostable!). Eiryss has a 12" shot (tear inducing!).

Shenanigan 2: Accuracy

I don't know if you'd count it as a shenanigan, maybe more like a perk. Mules have RAT 7 most shots. ATGM have a RAT 7/8 naturally. The Gunners have a RAT 6 for crying out loud! And Eiryss has the highest natural RAT in the game with 9!

Shenanigan 3: Soooo much knockdown

In my Ashlynn list everything knocks down, slams, or throws. EVERYTHING. I'm talking ATGM, Mules, Dannon and Bull, Hammers, everything. The Freebooter doesn't, but don't let it get to something that is knocked down because then it has the highest damage output in the game.

Gorten's list is no slouch either. Thor has a Basher and a lot of the same elements are in his list as well.

Against a traditional list this army is extremely frustrating, trust me. One friend of mine refuses to play against it anymore (which I hate to use to brag, sorry). Some games I've played the majority of my opponent's army spends a significant amount of time knocked down. Some casters make armies immune to KD, but even those have its limits. Understanding what gives the immunity is what helps me get KD spread out even in KD denying lists. Some casters require to be in CTRL range, so I just slam and throw the ones in the front and back further from the caster. Others naturally have it, and I just leave them for last or concentrate fire to outright kill it.

Shenanigan 4: The casters.

Oh, the casters. First my favorite, Gorten. His Feat has a feared reputation. It has so much utility it's hard not to find a situation in which it is useful. In kill box he slides them into the zone for at least 2 points automatically (as long as the caster isn't in the 2" circumference of the center). For assassination you use the wall and some planning to slide them into the opportune placement for charges and shooting. With -3 def everything in this high RAT army hits even casters reliably. Move Eiryss into position for the disruptor bolt for reassurance, then hit him with Gorman's Black Oil for overkill. Now the caster is at -7 DEF, nothing misses short of snake eye rolls. If he for some reason survives because his name is the Butcher (which has happened before lol) then he doesn't gather Focus and has to give up a move/action next turn with -3 SPD - no retaliation will happen people.

At 50 points survival would be a miracle. I usually slide them close to the hammers, then shoot everything at the caster. If he's not dead at that point then the hammers, well hammer it home.

Ashlynn is a whole other beast - one of which I've had less success with personally. Her feat is extremely annoying for the opponent and boosts my army's ability to critically hit to almost guaranteed proportions. I'm usually shocked when I don't critical, especially when I boost. After the turn is over retaliation is usually blunted. It's usually nonexistent due to crits making everything knocked down for the most part. If I'm in range it sometimes means the assassination succeeds.

My only problem with her is that I overextend her and overestimate the power of her feat. I sometimes feel too invincible and will throw out Ashlynn on her own during feat turn. DEF 17, Admonition, and ARM 17-20 with whatever attack dice I choose? She'll live.

Well, she dies pretty often despite all this.

So as long as I'm careful, and only put her in the thick of things with infantry she can easily dispatch and smartly use Admonition, then she usually performs better. Her shenanigans tend to support the army better than herself rather than Gorten's who makes it easier to kill things with.

All of these things make a fun army that's difficult to get a hold of. In scenario it performs much better than my Trolls and Ret. They hold zones better, they deny movement and also have plenty of ranged abilities to keep the enemy at bay. It has the stopping power to take down heavy armor (as long as you match up the right units against it) and if need be reliably take difficult models out of the mix (you may have a crazy ARM 50+ jack, but if I keep throwing it back from 16" it ain't catching anything!). For example against a Khador army using the Behemoth I would consistently push it back with ATGM and perhaps knocking it down on a lucky crit. If 7 ATGM hit it from 10" away with Thunderbolt it's going to be pushed far enough away to be denied the charge. If need be I shoot 16" away with the Mules. They have a decent chance at damage and a 44% chance to crit for the throw. Then I hit it with Eiryss' disruptor bolt. Now the Behemoth is around 16+" away, knocked down, and can't be allocated focus to shake effects. If it gives up its movement then it is much further away from effectiveness/contesting/charging. It's not able to boost attacks and if it misses the blast damage is ignored by Gorten. I can either continue to harass the Behemoth or tackle the next closest threat and systematically hold them at bay.

Anyway, I've made this entirely too long and didn't even talk about the Steamroller. I'll get back later, but I've got to go home now.

Edit: A day later and I will finish my extremely long train of thought...

All in all I have a bigger bag of tricks when it comes to this army. Usually what ends up happening is that an opportunity will present itself for exploitation around turn 2 or 3 of the game. This is much easier with Gorten and his potentially game ending feat. In order for most casters to be effective they will need to be close enough to the action to be in reach of Gorten's CTRL. Effectively this can be a huge range. If I place a model, say my driller which is usually right next to Gorten as a deterrent, at 7" away from Gorten, then Gorten declares a charge using his Gutter weapon on the model. He gets a successful charge with a weak weapon against a high ARM target usually resulting in no damage, and a small amount if it does. Once the charge is complete my Feat's threat range is 10", resulting in a total range of 17". This strategy is always available to me since it is not dependent on the enemy's board state short of being swarmed in front of me - and if that's the case then a blast from a Mule will clear that right up without fear of blast damage. All that is needed is at least one friendly model relatively close to Gorten. If we're playing a Steamroller and I went first, then 7" of the board is cleared up from deployment alone. So on turn two with this combo my range is 24" from the board edge if done in a straight line. Essentially on turn two a lane is covered from deployment to halfway up the board at 10" wide from CTRL. Some fast casters may be in that zone already on turn 2. If I went second then it would be 27", with the fact that they went first and probably ran or advanced even closer.

Another tactic is to cast strength of granite earlier in the game, say turn 1, on the driller. Turn 2 you have the driller throw Gorten a total of 9". Gorten activates and advances 4" and pops his feat. That's a threat range of 23", which is almost inescapable from most points on the board.

Once he is in range Gorten places a wall in his CTRL range. This is usually done to single out the caster while everything else gets pushed by the feat. If the caster is hiding behind a model you can place the wall to stop the push from affecting the caster while all screening models get slid 8" away. You can also slide the caster closer if he's unprotected and is just too far for models to charge or shoot.

Once the caster is slid to where he's needed then it's time to put on the hurt. I usually like to perform overkill in case your best efforts don't succeed (theoretically all your rolls can be snake eyes... you laugh, but this has happened!). I will move Eiryss into range and shoot the disruptor bolt to get rid of focus on warcasters. I then move Gorman into range to black oil the target, making his -3 DEF stack to -7. Then at that point everything can hurt the victim and handshakes will occur.

With Ashlynn these opportunities are much harder to find. She has a great feat and it helps with the entire army. However I find it difficult opening up the assassination with her, being that most casters won't stay close enough for her to charge. Usually what I end up keeping in mind is just killing the rest of the army and dealing with the caster later when he has no other models. If an opportunity presents itself for the charge I will take it, but most savvy players won't let that happen.

So, extremely long story short, I love playing this army and it has a tendency to do better than my previous ones. Although I love them, my Mercs are my more competitive list.

So, onto the original topic, the Steamroller on Saturday.

It was a small one. On a whim earlier in the week I decided to put my models together and just take the Highborn. I only have one fully painted model, but I've already shown off my trolls and don't need to play them for vanity's sake.

So my first game was against a good friend of mine named Monty. He has recently gotten into the game a few months back and plays Khador. Since he's just started out he's never played against this army, since it has a lot of elements that are not newbie friendly. It was a kill box scenario with objectives and a central control zone. He was using pIrusk, which he has found recent success with, along with a Winter Guard Death Star and a unit of Kayazy. I deployed my Hammer unit opposite of his assassins, thinking that they will need that MAT 7 against them and their slow speed is mitigated by the assassins' fast one so they will eventually be meeting in combat. I deployed Thor and his marshaled Basher on the WG side which was also my objective to destroy. I figured either I get to the objective and destroy it fast or if the WG plant in front of it they will have a hard time getting rid of it while I constantly use my Flak Field. The Basher is interesting in that it's hard to cripple a system until he's about to die anyway. With those as my flanks I deployed Gorten, his Driller and the Gunner in the center with the ATGM and their two mules in the center right. From these positions I have the option of threatening both sides throughout the game with some of the longest ranges.

I then deployed Eiryss and Gorman advanced up the center right. This way they were still within the protection of Gorten's Solid Ground, mitigating their one weakness to blast damage, while still being in effective range to assist the right flank and eventually circle to the caster once everything hits the fan. I tend to find that those who deploy two different and equally strong flanks tend to stay separated when pitted against my Mercs.

My first mistake was deploying Eiryss and Gorman opposite of his Sylys Wyshnalyrr, which I thought was close to his caster. He deployed his caster on the far left flank with Sylys in the middle for some reason. He later confessed it was on accident, which I told him it worked since I thought his caster was hiding behind the marshaled jack that Sylys was near!

He advanced his army's line up rather far while I ran most of mine up, short of Eiryss and Gorman due to fear of overextending my caster threats too far. Most of the time I try not to rely on them, instead I use them to dictate the flow of the battle simply by their locations. If I place them in the middle then the caster tries to avoid their threat range, which I then follow with running them to a flank and tunneling them into where I want the assassination to take place. Due to Solid Ground and Stealth they are extremely hard to get rid of, short of high speed shooters getting within 5" or things that ignore stealth. If something is on the board that does ignore stealth then I place them behind Gorten's wall. If Irusk is in range to place his spell to get rid of Eiryss, then that's much less focus to worry about to make his jacks effective or cast other inhibiting spells.

Once in range of each other he moved his WG within spray range and my eyes closed with prayer. Even though I have high defenses, sprays mitigate that with a volume of hits. Statistically one of these are bound to hurt something they shouldn't and my theory turned out correct. Eiryss came out alive, although short of breath and heart pounding. Six out of Seven ATGM weren't so lucky though, and that put a huge dent in my plans since he also managed to kill the Jack Marshall. No boosts for the mules now! He also ran the assassins to engage my Hammer unit.

The retaliation was swift. My Basher crashed into his lines and killed a few WG, but his main mission was to cause disruption. By engaging a majority of his unit he was forced to deal with a high ARM model that's hard to cripple and has the ability to burn his unit down slowly. For one model he's a great tarpit, even against that tough unit. Should they combine melee attack they may damage it, but it would still be a slow enough process to effectively take the unit out of the game. Not bad for a 7 point model!

One Mule took a pot shot at the jacks and managed to crit one and throw him back. The other one hit the WG in front of Gorten and took some out.

Gorten took the opportunity to charge 7" at a WG soldier and missed, but the point wasn't to kill him. I used his feat to slide everything to the left, including his caster which he kept at 2" from the Kill Box. It also slid the Assassins out of melee and into a forest, which just felt dirty. I then moved Eiryss parallel to the caster and shot him with the disruptor bolt.

During his turn he finally understood the power of Gorten's feat. He only thought it slid him, but I had to explain that it gave him a -3 SPD, so his caster couldn't get out of the kill box and had no focus, his jacks were neutered, and his assassins could only move 2 inches through the forest. The other flank was moved out of engagement for the most part and missed all their shots due to the -3 RAT. The only unaffected model failed his charge to my basher. The end of his turn gave me 2 VP for kill box.

During my turn I cleared out the control zone of enemy models with my right flank models. My hammers charged the assassins killing some and 4 of them outright murdered the jack protecting Irusk. I had Eiryss sit still and shoot another disruptor bolt for good measure on Irusk while Gorman threw oil on him. I ended the turn dominating the control zone.

The next turn was extremely quick since it was essentially over. Being unable to even contest the zone he decided to end the game since at the end of his turn I'd still dominate the zone no matter what and won. He cursed me then quickly began talking about Gorten's feat and used his favorite phrase of "It's unbeatable!" to describe it. He tends to cry foul a lot when he first experiences what he perceives is cheesy. He's only played Warhammer before Warmachine, so in his experience he'd probably be right. But in WM there's always a hard counter to everything, which I learned in my next game.

Being high up in the winner's bracket I faced a Cryx player. Not only do I have very little experience playing against Cryx, I also feel that Cryx tends to be the most competitive army out there tying with Legion. Of course it's only an opinion, and one that is most likely wrong, but the majority of tournament players out there use Cryx so I must be in the ball park.

Remember when I was talking about hard counters? Try two lists of incorporeal spam. One had 2 battle engines and Skarre.

I knew that it was over before it began (which may be my downfall, but I know the difference between an uphill battle and one that would take a miracle to win). I've been planning to buy Aiyana and Holt for my army to mitigate the fact that I have very limited access to magical weapons. I have the ATGM, but all it would take is to engage them and they'd be useless. I've been meaning to buy a friend of mine's A&H, but keep forgetting and instead replaced them with Dannon Blythe and Bull, who I find isn't as effective as I want them to be.

So let me lay out the situation for you:

I knew he'd pick Skarre. I figured I would lose. Even if I took Gorten, who I feel is my stronger caster, I can't push battle engines which negates his feat if he decides to plop them in front of his army. Soul tokens on the battle engines would negate Eiryss' effectiveness. My only unit that can be effective is the ATGM, and his army definitely has the speed to engage them. Since only their guns have magical weapon they'd easily be useless.

So I decide to pick Ashlynn so I wouldn't be locked in my last game with my list. It was brutal.

I killed a few models with the ATGM. That's about it, I got 7 army points. He used his battle engines to engage most of my army that would be effective for a caster kill, blocking in Ashlynn from using admonition or going for an assassination. Everything else was incorporeal. Even Skarre's spell negated Ashlynn's feat. All in all it was bad.

Lesson learned, A&H would be much more effective in my army, even when I'm not against incorporeal spam.

My last game was my redeemer. I was facing a Cygnar player who was locked in to his Jeremiah Kraye list. This army was very small and was light cavalry spam, coupled with Ol' Rowdy as his only heavy jack. I decided to stick with Gorten. Kraye will most likely be within range of the feat, and even if he isn't dragging cavalry to their dooms and neutering their movement the next turn was too sweet to pass up.

He got first turn and ran with it! With his advance deployed Hunters he moved them up and shot at my caster in his deployment zone. Of course, with his focus he's at ARM 24, so nothing happened. He moved the rest of his army up, using his light cav move to shift his army more on my right flank against my ATGM.

On my turn I used the fact that he moved so far up to my advantage. I advanced my mules and shot at the Tempest Blazers at the front of his army. I got a crit on the center one of 3, while the other two were just close enough to also get thrown. They were thrown into the unit behind them, knocking a total of 7 horses down. 2/3 Tempests were killed outright. It was an amazing shot with a perfect result and I couldn't have asked for more. The ATGM killed the last remaining Tempest.

The Hammers ran into one of the control zones getting ready to charge an obelisk objective. The basher was advanced through Thor and got ready to slam either the objective or a hunter next turn. Gorten and his retinue advanced behind a peice of terrain to gain cover and block charge lanes.

His turn of recovery went quickly. He couldn't do much on the flank with his horses since they were all giving up actions to move and the ones behind them couldn't do anything else but run. Kraye moved forward into the control zone and made Rowdy double his base SPD. The Hunters eliminated Thor making the Basher autonomous. Lastly Rowdy charged the driller and destroyed it. placing him close to but not engaging Gorten.

My turn was the reckoning.

I had Gorten charge Ol' Rowdy to get closer to Kraye. He didn't do anything with Gutter, but that's the point. I popped his feat and Rowdy was moved out of engagement and Kraye was slid into Gorten with full focus. He didn't kill him but gravely wounded him.

I then charged the hammers into Kraye and it was over. I would have destroyed an obelisk and get zone control but my opponent insisted I just finish it, and I knew I wasn't getting first anyway. It was over pretty quick.

All in all it was a good learning experience. I learned the most with my Cryx game. I know that I defeated myself before the game even started, but some games you learn to recognize are hopeless. I'm aware that sometimes I out think myself and make situations more complicated and dire than they truly are, especially if I feel pressured to carry out the assassination. However when you only have a few effective models against 50+ points of models then it becomes hard to justify hope. Lesson learned? Aiyana and Holt.

They're effective even against typical armies due to being able to essentially give -2 ARM to a unit. That can be devastating against the hammers, and even ATGM become a threat. Couple the ATGM with Ashynn's feat and Crit Brutal Damage and they're amazing.

Well, that was an extremely long post, but I hope you enjoyed it, although I don't know if anyone reads this anyway.

Happy gaming!

3/22/14 Steamroller Tournament

On 3/22 I participated in Fat Ogre's 50 Point Steamroller tournament. I used to go to this excellent store years ago when I lived in Huntsville. They've since relocated to an even better and bigger store. I highly recommend going there if you ever get the chance.

I only took one picture of my first game against a Protectorate of Menoth player. I made a few mistakes in this game, including bringing my Madrak brick list which operates as one unit to a 2 zone scenario. After realizing my mistake I felt extreme pressure to pull off the assassination vector being that he had eEiryss in one zone uncontested just racking up points while I got nothing from the other. I basically cleared a path to his caster via Double Hand Throws and Janissa's Tectonic Shift and ran (yes, ran) Madrak with full fury into B2B with his caster. I've done this before and succeeded, but then again I also knew the casters I did this to. Hard lesson of the day number one: read the caster card, especially to casters you've never faced or read about before. This caster was Resnik. And if you know Resnik then you know how much of an idiot I felt like when I did this. Needless to say instead of having 4 Fury for damage transfers (1 was used for upkeeping Surefoot) and Madrak's scroll mitigate any damage that got through Defense 16 Armor 18 immunity to Knockdown along with an almost entirely blocked off flank I ended up with just the scroll and my tough rolls. It, of course, was not enough.

Kids: Know your opponent!

No need to call me an idiot, I already call myself one for doing that move. At least the game ending early denied more control points! Not too many though...

The second game was much better. I got to play against a BEAUTIFULLY painted Retribution army. I was enamored with its airbrush job and took millions of pictures while profusely complimenting the owner on the army (although it was commissioned it was no less impressive to own). I even mentioned earlier that I will consider the tournament a success if I got to play against it.

It was a single zone scenario with 2 flags that cause points denial (a scenario I feel is terribly conceived and encourages camping), so the brick army was actually a viable list. I know Retribution extremely well being that it's my alternate army so I wasn't going to get surprised by anything on his side. He had an eVyros list that's all the rage right now spamming Griffons (7 in all) that I was curious to see as well as a shooting Ravyn list. I felt confident in the brick list considering that against his Ravyn list they'd excel and the eVyros list would outmaneuver my beast list (as fast as they are anyway) so I chose Madrak. He ended up using Ravyn which is a great matchup for me.

I hardly lost any models throughout the game, being that I had high Def high Arm models with multiple wounds against shooting units such as the Mage Hunter Strike Force and the Archers. It also didn't hurt I had made around 15-18 tough rolls, 6 of which were in a row! However due to the scenario he was denying any points I had made in the zone by simply keeping Ravyn on his own flag (annoying). All in all he probably denied me 5 points. I've heard horror stories about this scenario, with one case coming from my friend who scored 15 points overall that were denied!

Being that I was almost out of Deathclock time with no control points I felt the need to run the assassination vector. I used Madrak's Feat to pinball himself through 2 units and within melee of Ravyn with 5 Fury (I didn't upkeep Surefoot for the extra Fury) and made 4 missed attacks with him! The one that went through got Ravyn down to 4 health, but it wasn't enough. I then had to use a very desperate backup plan: I charged the caster with my Axer, who already had 1 fury on him from the previous turn and was locked in combat with MHSF and had only 2 points left in Spirit, potentially disabling the charge. I let him take three free strikes which actually managed to damage me significantly but didn't cripple anything! But before I had moved my base we had to carefully use a proxy base to determine whether the charge would fail. The thing was that there was a Mage Hunter in the way of my charge lane, and I'd have had to go at an angle that seemed like I'd be too far to hit Ravyn even with reach. In the end we had about 12 onlookers and the judge weighing in (we were the last game) and watching every moment of this final extremely tense moment. With the help of a laser, proxy base, melee template and me asking the judge to recheck twice he determined that I was in reach by a sliver of an inch! To me it was obvious, but all that matters is how a judge rules.

After that exchange which took about 10 minutes my opponent realized that he wasn't too worried, considering that Ravyn already has a high Defense and that I was attacking through a wall. I had one fury to start with, one to charge and was using one to boost which maxed out my beast. I needed to roll an 11 on 3 dice. With everyone watching I screamed and walked away when I rolled the 11.

Needless to say Ravyn died. She's got paper thin armor.

I ended up buying that laser pointer at the store. It saved my life.

It was also the prettiest game I've ever played by far.

After that I played against my friend Nick who played Circle. The brick stopped all his shenanigans, plus I know his army list pretty well and ended up getting quite a few CPs from him. I didn't take any pictures because I was pressed on time and ended up winning my Assassination with a minute and a half to spare!

Lastly I played my other friend Rueben, who plays Khador. We play very often and he's gotten very good within the last year. He played his pButcher list and I was locked into my pDoomy list. I had told him before that I had almost no experience with the list, and I thought it was definitely the weaker of the list. In fact the only experience I've had with it was playtesting against him! He stomped me by Scenario, but mostly because I - like an idiot - forgot that he scores CPs during my turn as well and he got 7 CPs off me. I gravely misunderstood how one of my units work which definitely explained why I couldn't figure out how to use them properly, which I'll explain in a bit.

Overall I got 7th of 13, which I shouldn't have been surprised by considering that almost every tournament I go to I break even exactly. In paintball we'd be in the middle with 2 wins 2 losses and a tie almost every time. In Warhammer I'd either W1L1D1 or W2L2D1 like clockwork if I didn't outright win. Last Steamroller I got 3rd with 1W1L1Bye. This time I got 2W2L and placed middle.

Rueben won 2nd due to jumping up in CPs from our game (Congrats!) and our ride Zach got 1st. He's an extremely well versed and challenging player. In the one game I played him he just murdered my trolls.

On the way home I mentioned how I just couldn't understand what I was doing wrong with my 2nd list. It consists of eDoomy with Mulg, an Axer/Mauler/Bouncer (of which I know exactly how to run with success) and Long Riders with Horthol, who I keep using with no understanding of how to use properly. When I run them it seems like they should be doing more and are easily tarpitted by the first thing they hit, especially infantry. Zach then explained to me that I've seriously misunderstood cavalry rules in regards to impact attacks. This whole time I was under the impression that they are essentially a mount attack at the target when they are in fact during movement, which is a very distinct difference. Due to large bases and the Tall in the Saddle rule I can declare charges to a far away target and hit every model in between during my movement. As long as they die I will get to finish my move and end in B2B with the target, making my melee attack.

I couldn't believe how I've been doing it wrong! Once I had been told this the possibilities ran rampant in my head! It went from a unit that seemed powerful but only due to its slams to one of the best units I field! Horthol gives them all an added die to Impacts. With POW 14 that will just outright ruin most single wound infantry and would have had a drastic effect on my last game with Rueben!

I understood how their slams worked and its ability to get to targets in the back, but it seemed like a situational ability better suited for large models shielding casters, not for swarms of infantry. But now I see all their abilities and see how they can take on any threat in their way be it small infantry or jacks!

Well, the best lessons are learned the hard way. I definitely learned the most from my losses that day. Understand scenario, know your opponent's caster and learn cavalry rules.

Every tournament teaches me valuable lessons, and I learn the most when I play in them. Casual games only teach me so much, and I don't get nearly as much exposure to competitive lists as I do in these Steamrollers. I'm excited about the next one and will update you guys when I have a chance. All that's left is to decide whether to take Trolls or try my luck with Highborn Covenant!

Here are more pics of that Retribution army. It was phenomenal!